After my herb bed gave me fits one year, Keith spent some time completely digging it out and replacing the dirt with potting soil and composted manure.  That was $90 worth of dirt!  That means I am spending a lot more time, and even more money, caring for it so the original costs won’t be wasted.
            I have gone to a real nursery to find plants, larger and more established (and more expensive) than the discount store 99 cent pots.  I have dug trenches for some scalloped stone borders to help keep the encroaching lily bed out of it, and to dissuade any critters that might hide beneath the shed behind the bed from using it as a back door.
            I water it every day, and fertilize it every other week.  I pull out anything that somehow blows in and seeds itself in my precious black soil. 
            I have seedlings planted to finish the bed, varieties of herbs that are difficult to find as plants, which I had to carry in and out of the house time and time again due to the fluctuating spring temperatures.  Then they were transplanted into ever-increasing sized cups as they outgrew their tiny seed sponges, before finally reaching their permanent home in the herb garden bed. 
            I have invested so much time, energy, and money into this herb garden that I am not about to let it die.
            Why is it that we will work ourselves silly because of a monetary investment, while at the same time neglecting other things much more important to our lives?
            How about your marriage?  I say to every young couple I know, “Marriage is a high maintenance relationship.”  Right now, they think they will always be this close, always share every joy and every care.  They think there will never come a time when she wonders if he still loves her, or he wonders if she cares at all about the problems he must deal with at work.
            Life gets in the way.  If you want to stay as close as you are during that honeymoon phase, you have to tend your little garden.  Fix his favorite meal.  Send her flowers.  Put a love note in his lunchbox.  Take out the garbage without being asked.  Find a babysitter and go out on a date.  Just sit down after the kids are in bed--make them go to bed, people--and talk to each other.  And listen!  Pray together.  Study together.  Worship together.  Laugh together.  Cry together.
            What about your relationship with God?  Do you think you can maintain a close relationship with someone you don’t know?  He gave you a whole book telling you who He is, 1 Cor 2:11-13.  How much time do you spend with it?  How often do you talk to Him?  How can He help you when you never ask?  How can you enjoy being in the presence of someone with whom you have nothing in common?  Disciples want nothing more than to become like their teachers, 1 Pet 2:21,22; 2 Pet 3:18.
            None of that comes without effort.  You must spend some time and energy, maybe even make a few sacrifices to cultivate your relationship with God.  When you have invested nothing, it means nothing to you, and it shows. 
            Spend some time today improving your marriage, tending to your family relationships, cultivating your love and care for your brethren, and most of all, caring for your soul—pulling out the weeds, feeding it, nursing it along--so it will grow into a deeper, stronger, more fruitful relationship with your God.
 
Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap according to kindness; break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek Jehovah, till he come and rain righteousness upon you, Hosea 10:12.
 
Dene Ward

Everyone knows about Babe Ruth, but did you know that in his first year as a Major Leaguer—1914--he didn't hit a single home run?  Granted he only played in five games, but this is Babe Ruth we're talking about.  The second year he hit 4 home runs, including his first in the major leagues as part of the Boston Red Sox.  On May 6, 1915, in the third inning at the Polo Grounds against the New York Yankees, he hit a solid pop that made the entire crowd gasp as it sailed into the second tier of the right field grandstands.  As his career continued, he improved even more, setting the record for most home runs in a season (29 in 1919), and then breaking his own record twice.  Improvement should be expected in a professional and Babe Ruth certainly lived up to it.
            It happens in other areas as well.  We have always had a large garden, mainly to keep the grocery bill affordable.  An 80 by 80 foot plot has been planted in three different places through the years as we came to know our land and which areas of it were best suited for what.
            But the past few years, we have downsized.  Half the original garden, now 40 by 80, is plenty of room for the little the two of us need, and we still have extra to give away on Sunday mornings.  But since the other half was already tilled, it seemed a shame to waste it.  So that first year Keith planted an entire pound of wildflower seeds in it.  If that does not impress you, consider that those seed packets you buy in the store containing 25 seeds are less than a tenth of an ounce.  In fact, most of the weight, should you put them on a scale small enough to weigh ounces, is the paper packet itself.  So a pound of flower seeds is an enormous amount.
            As the spring and summer passed by, nothing came up.  What a disappointment.  Planting those seeds was a lot of work—tilling, sowing, rolling with a fifty gallon barrel, hauling hoses and setting up sprinklers to water it.  Too much work, Keith decided, to try it again. 
            Then one spring morning during the second year, he looked out on that side of the old garden space and saw what he had expected to see the year before.  Bright yellow fleabane in huge clumps, fire engine red, deep pink, and fuchsia phlox, orange gaillardia, yellow and maroon tickseed, and tall stems of black-eyed Susans and cone flowers.  It has been a delight all year long.  We just had to wait for it longer than expected.
            I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. (1Cor 3:6)
            Planting for the Lord is hard work.  It may be natural to want to see results immediately.  It may be understandable to become discouraged when we do not.  Stop whittling on God's end of the stick.  Our job is to plant.  Period.  God will give the increase in His own good time—maybe the second year, maybe not until the fifth or tenth or even the twentieth. 
            So keep sowing that seed.  You sow it with your words, with your offers to hold a Bible study, with the example you set when life goes awry as it will sooner or later for everyone.  You sow it on purpose and you sow accidentally when you do not realize someone else is watching and listening.  You sow it formally with written invitations and flyers and you sow when you just happen to think to invite out of the clear blue.  One of these days you might see a few results.  But then again, you may never see one.  That does not mean they won't happen in a heart years removed from the time you sowed, long after you are gone.  Even Babe Ruth had to wait a while.
            But when those seeds bloom, they will be some of the most beautiful blooms on the face of the earth—a heart where the gospel has taken root and formed a servant of the Lord.  Sow something today, on purpose, and think about my wildflowers as you do.  God will give that increase--sometime.  We must learn to stop counting and see it by faith.
 
For as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven, and returns not there, but waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. (Isa 55:10-11)
 
Dene Ward

It’s spring and that means the tarps that have been protecting things for several months need to be laid out to dry, folded, and put up.  It’s spring and the plastic sheeting needs to be set up over the small, early, garden plot because we will have another frost or two.  It’s spring and that means the breezes are blowing and nothing will stay where you put it for any length of time at all.
            In late February Keith was out in the field laying out the tarps and plastic to dry in the sun, and trying to weigh down the corners with buckets and tools and anything else that came to hand.  He had managed three or four all by himself before dinner, and then I walked out with him afterward to see the freshly tilled garden and the early plot he had set out.  He bent to secure one corner of plastic just as the breeze increased and blew it right out of his hand.  I leaned down to help on my end only to have it, too, blown from my grasp.  He got hold of his corner as I chased mine around in a circle.  Finally we each had a corner and bent to secure them with handfuls of moisture-heavy garden dirt, only to have a particularly strong gust blow it free yet again.
            Three or four tries later we had the early plot covered and secured, the plastic stretched over a line three feet off the ground that ran down the middle to make a small greenhouse of sorts.  We were clothes-pinning the center where the “door” of our teepee met on either end.  Even that took a few tries followed by pinched faces and hunched shoulders waiting for the breeze to once again undo it all.  It held!
            “Whew!” he exclaimed.  “This kind takes prayer and fasting.” I looked at him with a rueful smile, and wondered how many prayers he must have prayed before I got there to help.
            You know, of course, that he was referring to Matt 17:21.  The disciples could not cast a demon out of a boy, but Jesus could.  For their lack of faith they received a stern rebuke, yet Jesus added that it was a particularly difficult demon to cast out.  Sometimes you will have to work harder than others, he seemed to mean by his comment about prayer and fasting.
            And occasionally overcoming a temptation is more difficult than at other times.  Sometimes it’s the circumstances.  If you are tired, or in pain, or grieving, or in any number of other situations, you may have a more difficult time passing the test.  Sometimes it’s the test itself.  Some things bother us more than others, pushing the buttons that most easily cause a reaction.  Sometimes it’s the “help.”  How many times has someone offered the advice to “calm down,” only to have that very advice cause the opposite reaction in spades?
            But notice this about that narrative in the gospels:  Jesus still expected those disciples to have mastered the demon and tossed it out.  Yes, it’s a hard one, he said, but you could have done it if you had enough faith.
            And so can we, if we are in the correct frame of mind.  There is always a way of escape.  It is never more than we can handle.  It doesn’t matter what the test is, what the circumstances are, or how many well- or even ill-meaning people get in the way. So here are a few suggestions that might help all of us.
            Know your hot buttons and avoid them.  How many times do the Proverbs call people fools who go blundering about their lives without even a thought where they might be headed?  How many other times are the “fools” the ones who go to difficult places with the arrogant notion they won’t be trapped like everyone else?
            If you cannot avoid these difficult situations, then prepare yourself before you get there.  If that means looking at yourself in the mirror and giving yourself a good talking to before you leave the house, then do it.  If it means praying before you leave—always a good idea—do it. 
            Then, don’t forget what you did the minute the door shuts behind you.  Nothing changes because your surroundings did.  If it means quoting scripture all the way through the situation itself, or singing hymns, do it.  Do whatever it takes.
            Don’t blame your failure on anyone else.  “I was doing fine until you came along and…” won’t change the bottom line.  You blew it.
            Do not give yourself an out of any kind.  “He deserved it [my tirade],” would cause you a lot of pain if it were said of you and God followed through on it—we all “deserve it” whatever “it” we might be talking about.  Don’t feel sorry for yourself because it was “hard.”  Do not ever excuse yourself if you failed.  You will never improve if you do.
          Know yourself.  Know what might take “prayer and fasting” to overcome.  God expects it of you, just as He did those apostles.  He expects you to succeed.  And you can.
 
Save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler. Prov 6:5
 
Dene Ward

“Those winter squash vines have grown a foot since that rain two days ago,” Keith mentioned as we drove into town one Tuesday morning.  “You can tell because the new growth is a different shade of green.”
            Indeed it is, I thought.  When spring comes, the new growth on the live oaks is a brighter shade I like to call “spring green.”  Even new growth on the roses is a different shade—a deep red.  New growth in plants is obvious.
            The New Testament is far too full of agricultural comparisons for me to pass this one by.  We are told ten times in the epistles to “grow” (auxano).  I may not be a Greek scholar, but I can run a program or look in a good, old-fashioned concordance for the same Greek word and where and how it’s used.  My question today is this:  is it just as obvious when we have new growth?  It ought to be.  So what will people see when I “grow” in this manner?
            2 Cor 9:10 tells me that the “fruits of my righteousness” will grow.  That certainly ought to be an obvious indicator.  If I am still struggling mightily, not just once in a while but constantly, to overcome the sins that held me captive before my conversion, then I am not growing as I ought to.  The time factor may be different for each one of us, but things should be improving.  I should become strong instead of fragile, someone who someday can help those who came from my identical circumstances.  If I cannot reach that point, something is amiss.
            Paul told the Colossians that their “knowledge” should be growing, 1:10.  When the same old chestnuts are tossed out in class, things that have been proven wrong by simple Bible study for years, I wonder if anyone is growing in knowledge.  Sitting on a pew will not do it.  It takes work, and it takes time.  It cannot be done in “14 minutes a day.”  I despair sometimes of the church ever reaching the point that it is once again known for its Bible knowledge as I see my Bible classes dwindling in number, and only frequented by older women.  When the new growth is only seen on the older vines, what does that say about our future?
            2 Cor 10:15 says my faith should be growing.  Do I show that with an ability to face trials in a more steady fashion than I used to?  Or do my words and actions, decrying God and questioning His love, show that I am no farther along than I was ten years ago?  Have I learned to accept His will and His ways, even when I do not understand them, or do I demand an explanation as if He were my child instead of the other way around?
            2 Pet 3:18 says we are to be growing in grace.  This one may be the most difficult one to assess, but think of this:  what does God’s grace excuse and pardon in you?  How patient was He when you were rebelling outright instead of just making ignorant and foolish mistakes? Now, how much grace do you grant to others who absent-mindedly get in your way, who have their own problems on their minds and are hardly aware of your presence?  Your neighbors, your colleagues, fellow shoppers, the driver in the car ahead of you—if you are not showing the grace of God to these in an obvious way you have not grown in grace as you should have.  If you are looking for a reason to sigh loudly, to complain, to blow that horn, instead of searching diligently for a way to offer grace as it was offered to you, you need to think again about your progress in the gospel.  I do too.
            All of us, no matter how long we have been Christians, should be showing growth.  In every area of our lives all of us should be sporting a different shade of green.
 
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Eph 4:15-16
 
Dene Ward

We have always shared our garden produce.  We have never had a lot of disposable income, but every summer we have extra beans, peas, squash, cucumbers, corn, cantaloupes, okra, peppers, tomatoes, and melons.  Every trip into services includes handing out bag after bag after bag of whatever we are inundated with that week.
Once we gave a friend a bag of fordhooks.  Knowing she was a city girl, we did not do so without instructions.
            “You will need to shell them tonight, or if you must wait until tomorrow, then spread them out on newspapers.”
            A week or so later we asked her how she liked the beans.  Her red face and downcast eyes told the story before she said a word.
            “I left them in the bag overnight on the kitchen table and they soured and sprouted.  I’m so sorry.  I thought you were just exaggerating.”
            Yes, we still speak and are still good friends.  In fact, she is not the only one who has ignored our instructions and lost good produce as a result.  All these people help me understand a couple of verses in the book of Hebrews.
            And to whom swore he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that were disobedient? And we see that they were not able to enter in because of unbelief. Heb 3:18-19
            In one verse, the Hebrew writer accuses the Israelites in the wilderness of disobedience and in the next of unbelief.  To him they were one and the same, and my disbelieving non-gardening friends prove the point.  When you do not believe what you are told, you will not do what you are told.
            Now granted, Keith and I are just ordinary people who might possibly be wrong, but you would think that forty years’ gardening experience would make us at least a little credible.
            And certainly God should have been credible to people who saw Him send the ten plagues, part the Red Sea, send water gushing out of a rock, and rain manna night after night.  But people always have an excuse if they do not want to obey.
            “It can’t be that important.”
            “God doesn’t care about such a little thing.”
            “God is merciful and loving.”
            “After all, I have done so many good things.  That ought to count more than this.”
            And so they deceive themselves into believing that the beans won’t spoil.  And their unbelief becomes disobedience, something God has never tolerated for an instant.
            Believe it!
 
For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. Heb 4:2,11
 
Dene Ward

“Mommy, those green blackberries burnt my mouth.”
            We were picking peas in a field behind a member’s farmhouse late one afternoon.  We had just moved to the area and had not had time to plant our own garden, so we were happy to do all the free U-picks our brethren offered.  Nathan, who was only 13 months old, was playing up at the house under the watchful care of the grandmotherly farmwife.  Three year old Lucas wanted to come “help,” so he trailed along behind us, picking a pea pod every so often, but usually exploring.
            It took a minute for what he had said to register.  Then, with a knot of fear growing in my stomach, I calmly asked, “What blackberries?  Show me.” 
            He led us back about twenty feet, to a place in the fencerow.  Instead of blackberry vines, we saw a four foot high green plant, with spade-shaped leaves and round green berries—nightshade.  We dropped our buckets, pulled the plant, scooped him up, and headed for the nearest emergency room, thirty miles east.  As soon as we arrived, Keith dropped me at the door.  I ran in and practically threw both Lucas and the plant on the registration desk. 
            “My baby ate this,” I managed between gasps.
            I had found the trick to immediate action in an emergency room.  They ran both him and the plant back behind the swinging doors.  I, of course, was taken to Paperwork Central—they never forget the documentation so they will be paid.  It probably did not help that I had come straight from the field, sweat, dirt, and all, and so did not look particularly solvent.
            Two hours later we left with a completely sobered three- year-old, promising us he would never eat green blackberries again.  As far as I know, he hasn’t!
            So why are we so much less careful about the poison that sickens our souls?  Spiritual nightshade surrounds us every day of our lives.  Somehow we think we are immune to its effects.  We go places we should not, associate with people we should not, dally with things that are as dangerous as a poisonous snake, and pooh-pooh anyone who dares tell us to be careful.
            I am not just talking about things like alcohol and sexual immorality.  Do you realize that wealth in the scriptures is never pictured as anything but dangerous to our souls?  But what do we wish for when the subject of wishes comes up?  And what do we always say?  “I could handle it.  I would never use it the wrong way.  It would never get the best of me.”  What do we tell our young people when they say the same things about drugs and alcohol? 
            Arrogance will always get the best of us in all these cases.  Might as well handle a cobra.  Might as well drink some cyanide. 
            Might as well eat a pie made of green blackberries.


For [the] rock [of the wicked] is not as our Rock...For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter.  Their wine is the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asps, Deut 32:31-33.

 

Dene Ward

I loved to do it when I was a child—pick the stem of a dandelion and blow those puffballs everywhere.  Give my parents credit, they never told me to stop.  I had no idea I was spreading a weed around that most people wanted nothing to do with.  Once we became gardeners I knew why, and shuddered at my childhood hobby.
            Have you ever tried to pull up one of those things?  Most times it will break off, leaving the root in the ground, ready to sprout another yellow bloom, followed by the white seed head, which is called a capitulum, by the way, which is made up of cypselae, which are then carried off by the parachute-like objects called calyx tissue.  I bet that's more than you ever wanted to know about dandelions.  But there are worse things to know.
            First, the reason you cannot just pull up a dandelion is that long, thick, white, carrot-like (or more appropriately it seems to me, parsnip-like) taproot, sometimes as long as two to three feet.  The tissue at the top of the root is tender, so as you grab a handful of the weed and pull, it will quite easily break at ground level.  The plant will then grow back as vigorous as ever, leaving you with nothing to show for your work but a handful of dandelion greens.
            And then there is this second thing, which we only just learned this spring.  We planted a patch of wildflowers three years ago with seed we ordered from a well-reviewed company.  The first year we had scads of cosmos and I think I figured out why the second year.  The cosmos were almost the only things that came up and bloomed that first year.  Just a few coreopsis and rudbeckia showed their little heads, as well as a small scattering of gaillardia.  Really, if it had not been for the cosmos, we would have considered the seed a complete waste of money.  But the next year we saw no cosmos at all.   Instead, we had red phlox early on, and then the coreopsis, rudbeckia, and gaillardia boomed.  I think that cosmos was just to make sure we had something come up and bloom the first year. 
            However, we now have some dandelion interlopers.  Keith went around with a trowel digging those things up before the puffball could appear.  And here is what we found out:  two or three days later, the blooms, which had been lying in the sub-tropical sun with no roots in the ground at all, had still managed to produce seed heads, and there those puffballs lay on the ground, just waiting to dig their way into our flower patch!  It was impossible to pick them up without spreading them everywhere.  The least little breeze and they were all over the place.  All that digging and pulling he had done had been for nothing.  Next year he will carry a bucket with him and deposit them in it so they can be discarded far away from our wildflower plot!
            Have you ever heard about young men who have to "sow their wild oats" before they mature and become responsible adults?  If you are either a farmer or a gardener, you understand the fallacy in that philosophy.  Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap (Gal 6:7).  Yes, I have known some young men who did indeed turn out all right.  That was only because someone else did some heavy duty planting before they went off sowing those oats. 
            But even if they do come back to their senses, all those wild oat seeds will eventually come back to haunt them.  As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same (Job 4:8).
          Just like those dandelion blooms still managed to make seed heads, your sins will work that way as well.  Whenever you take part in some sinful pleasure, having known that pleasure will make it much more tempting.  Once you have gotten used to bad language, those words will forever be on the tip of your tongue when a crisis arises.  And all those bad habits will be not only hard to break, but even harder to keep broken.   And all because you thought pulling a dandelion up, even by the root, would kill it.
            Make it easier on yourself.  Don't even plant them.
 
For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind…​Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. (Hos 8:7; 10:12).
 
Dene Ward
 

Cutworms are ugly, fat, brown worms that can wreak havoc overnight in a garden.  They rise to the surface, wrap themselves around the tender stems of new plants, and cut them off at ground level.  In the morning you find plant after plant, cut off and lying on the ground, shriveling in the new dawn.
            Gardeners espouse various cures for cutworms.  Some place plastic or foil collars around the stems from just above ground level to several inches below.  Others insert nails, Popsicle sticks or toothpicks in the ground, one on either side of each stem.  We generally just pick up a pile of twigs from the yard and poke them down next to the stems.  All these cures work because they keep the worms from being able to surround the stem and cut it down.  At least with our way, you don’t have to walk the garden removing things that either won’t degrade or might be dangerous.  Just ask my son Nathan about toothpicks and bare feet.
            These cures work for souls as well.  People who face the trials and cares of life alone, without any support or encouragement, might as well have Satan wrap them up in his arms.  They are that vulnerable.  As vigilant soldiers of Christ we should be on the lookout during times when we find ourselves alone.  Are you the only one at school who even claims to be a Christian?  The only one at work?  The only one in your neighborhood?  Make sure you are not too proud to recognize moments of weakness and ask someone for help.  Be willing to seek companionship when you need it.  In fact, be willing to run for it!
            And to those who are never alone, who are blessed enough to have a Christian mate or to work in a Christian atmosphere, pay attention to those around you who are not.  Find the singles, the widows, the ones who have been left by unfaithful spouses, and be the someone who stands next to her so the devil cannot wrap her up and cut her down.  We are too often so involved in our own families that we do not look for or make time for the lonely souls who need us.  They are always the “fifth wheel,” not a couple, and so they are ignored because they don’t fit in.  It is our job to fit them in.
            Look around you today and find a loner.  Don’t let anyone lose his soul because you didn’t even think to wrap him up in your encouraging arms and let him know that he is not alone.
 
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow.  But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him -- a threefold cord is not quickly broken, Eccl 4:9-12.
 
Dene Ward